What Are Little Boys Made Of?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

David Benkof: Behind the Mask

At first glance, David Benkof appears to be a young gay man who believes that same-sex marriage will damage the institution of marriage, that there are better options for gay couples than marriage, that the community should join him in prioritizing other more pressing issues, and that the marriage discussion is harming the efforts of gay couples in red states to get recognition for their unions. He also claims that he’s a gay columnist, that he speaks for an influential collection of gay thinkers, and that he is part of the gay and lesbian community and that he shares our goals and dreams. But none of that is true.

“Repeat After Me”: The Reparative Therapy Echo Chamber

The April 2008 edition of the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports featured a new report from NARTH. Written by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, past president Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, the report carries the unwieldy but self-descriptive title, “Clients perceptions of how reorientation therapy and self-help can promote changes in sexual orientation.” While the title describes what the authors meant to show — how clients describe the benefits of reparative therapy — the report itself actually illustrates something very different: the ex-gay movement’s remarkable ability to instill an almost robot-like parroting of ex-gay rhetoric among their clients.

Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?

The Toronto Star said that a new study “discover[ed] a new strain” of a super-bug “hitting gay men.” Headlines in Britain screamed, “Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco’s gay community,” and anti-gay extremists across America spread the alarm that gays were introducing another plague into “the general population.” But there was a small problem with all of this: None of it is true!

Paul Cameron’s World

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

At last, the truth can now be told.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

Review: The Gay Report

When Karla Jay and Allan Young published The Gay Report in 1979, it quickly a favorite source of statistics for many anti-gay extremists. But before you accepts these statistic at face value, you should examine the inner workings of this survey very carefully. What you learn might surprise you.

Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.

“The Most Significant Cases These 9 Justice Have Ever Considered, And Probably Will Ever Decide”

Jim Burroway

November 30th, 2012

At their Conference today, the Justices will consider petitions raising federal constitutional issues related to same-sex marriage. These are the most significant cases these nine Justices have ever considered, and probably that they will ever decide.

I have never before seen cases that I believed would be discussed two hundred years from now. Bush v. Gore and Obamacare were relative pipsqueaks. The government’s assertion of the power to prohibit a loving couple to marry, or to refuse to recognize such a marriage, is profound. So is the opposite claim that five Justices can read the federal Constitution to strip the people of the power to enact the laws governing such a foundational social institution.

While the cases are historic, the justices are being called upon to judge them today:

Our country and societies around the world will read the Justices’ decision(s) not principally as a legal document but instead as a statement by a wise body about whether same-sex marriages are morally right or wrong. The issues are that profound and fraught; they in a sense seem to transcend “law.” Given the inevitability of same-sex marriage, if the Court rules against those claiming a right to have such unions recognized, it will later be judged to be “on the wrong side of history.”

But the verdict of history cannot decide the legal questions presented by these cases. The cases arrive today, in this moment, before our cultural transition has completed. In a sense, it is a shame that there is such pressure to hear the cases now; the judgment for the rest of the nation’s history would certainly favor these claims. But if they do decide to grant review, the Justices cannot merely choose to embrace the past or the future. They will have to make a judgment now.

You’ve got to read the whole thing. He’s right: this is history before our eyes, whether it winds up being Dred Scott or Loving v. Virginia.

Hyhybt

Priya Lynn

“One thing it definitely *won’t* be, despite fears (or perhaps, in some cases, hopes) some have expressed: it won’t be another Roe.”

I think its rather poor judgment to say any future happenings or lack thereof is a certainty. Reminds me of all the Republicans I argued with before the election who assured me it was a certainty that Romney would win.

Russ

Goldstein is a little excited, and it shows in his thinking. Isn’t “most significant case” a hubristic claim? On a par with a Hollywood poster: “the most important movie of the year/decade/century” etc., etc.

And notice the little twist in his thinking – at the very same time he’s slobbering about “most significant case” as if that’s something wonderful, he’s slamming the rule of law that our civilization is based on: “five justices . . . can strip the people of power.” Which is like saying, OH FUCK this is the most AWESOME baseball game EVER . . . but shit, ONE REFEREE can decide the outcome, and that sucks the big one.” What?

Get a grip, Goldstein. Everything comes down to a majority of five in our system of government, if it gets pushed that far. That’s the rule of law, and apart from it you just have anarchy with tea partiers shooting off their guns and liberals shooting off their mouths. It’s just how the game is played, and what sensible alternative is there? A little more calm and patience needed here, guys.

Hyhybt

“I think its rather poor judgment to say any future happenings or lack thereof is a certainty.”—In most situations, I’d agree, but this particular assertion is safe, and if you look at *why* the abortion thing has dragged on the way it has, it’s obvious this isn’t of the same sort. Roe v Wade pushed abortion into the spotlight, but there’s no real movement either way in public *opinion* on the subject, probably because the single biggest factor in which side a person takes is when they believe life to begin, a question that’s not only inherently unanswerable, but perhaps even nonsensical. There’s just no handle to grab, so to speak.

But on marriage… well, the biggest difference is that public opinion isn’t both centered and static. Like the other, it’s at about halfway, but it’s very clearly moving, consistently and fairly quickly. Is there really a reason, other than not wanting to declare any result impossible, to think that a court ruling would stop people who otherwise would, sometime in the next few years, decide that it’s OK for gay couples to marry after all from doing so? Nobody I’ve seen raise that fear has provided one, that’s for sure.

Priya Lynn

Your reasoning is sound Hyhybt, but I’ve often seen a possible future that seems extremely improbable happen, that’s why I try to make sure I never say any future event based on what people might do “definitely *won’t*” (or will) happen.

Ben In Oakland

Re DOMA: they’ll say that it is unconstitutional for the feds not to recognize valid marriages. I’m pretty sure that they’ll say the states have to recognize valid mariages performed elsewhere, but don’t have to allow it within their borders.

They will not do a Roe, however, and mandate marriage equality. However, I think that really depends on roberts.

Ben In Oakland

BTW, although many will disagree with me on this, I really don’t want them to mandate marriage equality across the board, even thogh I think it’s the right thing to do and a goal I fervently want to see achieved. But I want to see it achieved from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

There are a number of reasons for this.

1) It gives the religious right yet another issue to exploit for twenty years or so, much as they have exploited abortion since 1971. They use it for fundraising, political power, judiciary packing, electioneering, you name it. They use it for weveyrthing to convince people to vote against their own interests and for the sake of those unknown and unknowable unborn babies. The progressive and moderate wings in this ocutnry really don’t need to give them another issue.

2) From the bottom up means that eventual victory will indeed be permanent.

3) It will require that gay people who want marriage, who want this vicious, stupid prejudice to end, will actually have to step up to the plate and come out, to live their lives as openly gay people, to be a part of their communities as gay people, to make that personal/political statement.

I have long maintained that the enemy is not the religious right and the antigay bigots. Ultimately, I don’t think they matter so much. The enemy is, and always has been, their enforcement mechanism– the closet. The closet is what convinces us to oppress ourselves, so they don’t have to dirty their hands doing so, and can spend their time, energy, and resources on other groups.

We’re never going to reach the people who are irretrievably poisoned by hate, by fear, by religious paranoia, by their wholly imaginary superiority, their lust for power and money and dominion, or their own very dark secrets. That’s the definition of irretrievably poisoned. So there is no sense worrying about them.

The only reason we are winning is that more and more gay people are standing up and being counted– to themselves, in their families, churches, communites, and in their political jurisdictions. When we hide, we’re invisible and easy to dismiss as the other. When we stand up, people have to make a choice.

Decent people– and i think the majority of americans are kind, decent people– realize that they can’t vote against people they know, love, and respect. They just can’t. Look at what has happened in so many Christian denominations by the simple facts of people standing up and demanding recognition.

If we want to eradicate this prejudice, not just in our country but in others, then ending the closet is the only path. And ending the closet is the long term goal.

JFE

Another thing that could happen is about fifteen or so states legalize it in the next ten years, another fifteen in the next ten, and the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage protected under the Fourteenth Amendment in about 2035 to cover the rest of the states.

Ben In Oakland

Hyhybt

2035 is too far away. They won’t do it, but if the court *did* use the Prop 8 case to declare it a right throughout the country, that WOULD be a permanent change. It wouldn’t be one everybody would *like*, obviously, but it would nonetheless be permanent. Objectors’ numbers would, perhaps after a brief jump, continue to decline, and in the meantime people could actually take advantage of marriage a whole generation sooner. (Not that I agree it will take anywhere near until 2035 anyway, but any delay that is not absolutely necessary is time lost that can never be recovered, especially for those who die during the extra wait.)

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